by S. K Munt
‘Wait, you’re saying that’s the first water you’ve had in a while?’ another voice asked, and I looked up in shock to see a woman with messy, titian hair making her way across the room towards me. I knew her- though I’d only ever met her once. She was one of the beauticians, but the last time I’d seen her, she’d look impeccable. Now, she looked as haggard as I felt and as Kohén looked. ‘How long is a while, exactly?’
I looked at Kohén, and he nodded to the woman. ‘That’s Dulcie. She’s a Nephilim by birth, a beautician by trade and a bitch by-’
‘A healer?’ I asked, looking back at her and finding that unlikely. The woman was glaring at me like she wished be ill-will, not a rapid recovery!
‘No, though it would have been handy to have one here, wouldn’t it?’ she asked of Kohén, and he sighed and patted my hand before rolling up the cuffs of the cream shirt that I knew he’d been wearing the night before.
‘Don’t mind her- she hasn’t had any sleep, and most of that attitude is directed towards me, all right? No, Dulcie’s not a Healer- she has the ability to manipulate temperature, and conduct it through her hands. When you passed out last night, I realised straight away that you were too hot to touch and that your heart rate was too high and light, and because I knew we didn’t have a healer anymore-’
‘Well, we had one-’ Dulcie broke in rudely.
‘Because I knew that we didn’t have Cherry anymore,’ Kohén re-tried, giving the woman a dirty look, ‘I called upon Dulcie to see to you while we waited for an actual doctor to be fetched from the village. I knew that if she could lower your temperature by pressing her icy hand to your forehead, it would draw your fever down- and I was sort of right.’
‘I did what I was asked to do…’ Dulcie said quietly, still regarding me with a vexed expression. ‘But that was all I could do, and you were in such a state of distress that nothing could be done to slow your heart rate or calm you down.’
‘Ice wouldn’t have worked?’
‘We tried,’ Kohén said, shaking his head as though amused by it all now, ‘but it melted within seconds of being pressed against you.’
I couldn’t believe it. I’d melted ice with my fever? That was insane! But from what I recollected… it also sounded about right. ‘I fought you off, didn’t I?’ I asked Dulcie quietly and when she nodded, I turned to Kohén and cringed. ‘I remember. When you held me down it felt like burning-hot brands being shackled onto me.’ I turned to Dulcie. ‘Not your hands though- if that was your hands I remember feeling- then yes, they had a cooling effect on me. I can’t say that it was welcome at the time because I just wanted to melt into a puddle of nothingness to escape the pain… but if I’m alive, I dare say it’s a credit to you.’
Dulcie looked somewhat mollified by that. ‘Well… well that’s something, I suppose.’ She made a face at Kohén. ‘I was beginning to fear that I was going to be punished for failing to save you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dulcie. I knew how bad she was and how hard you tried. If you’d failed… well, then it would have been me failing her, not you. And your cynicism regarding my feelings towards Larkin and my treatment of my staff is unfounded- when did the Barachiel name become a monstrous one to you all? Have we not been kind employers? Have you ever seen a woman mistreated in this harem at my hands? Karol is the one that has brought them in with rope burns, not I, and even then the girls seem awfully pleased with their markings!’
I made a distasteful expression, but Dulcie lowered her eyes. ‘I apologise, your highness. I shall take pains to curb my tongue on such matters from hereon out.’
I looked from Dulcie to Kohén, confused. ‘What are you saying? About the Barachiel name, I mean?’
Kohén sighed. ‘It’s not what I’m saying about the Barachiel name that is the problem- it is what ill-informed people are saying,’ He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Anyway I’m too tired to think about that right now and it’s the last thing I want to discuss.’ He kissed my hand again. ‘I just want to drink this moment in- of you being alive.’
I bit my lip. ‘It was really that bad?’
‘It was horrible,’ Dulcie confessed, sitting wearily down on the end of my bed and staring vacantly across at the wall. ‘One moment all was well and the next thing you know, Kohén was racing out of the harem with you in his arms and screaming for help.’
My eyebrows shot up- he’d taken me out of the harem while I’d been unconscious and he panicked? Well, that explained some of the blemishing of the family name...
‘We were kissing and… and other stuff-’ Dulcie scowled as Kohén flushed beet-red, ‘-and you just fainted,’ Kohén pouted gently. ‘I didn’t see it coming, just-’
‘Me cumming?’ I joked, and some of the light returned to his eyes while Dulcie made a prudish face.
‘Well, yes that was rather, uh, riveting… for both of us,’ he was getting redder and redder but standing a little taller and I knew that he’d probably been accused of being the only one having any fun because he darted a triumphant look at Dulcie, ‘and then you checked out completely before you’d, um… finished, I thought.’ He wiped his hair out of his sweaty brow and grew more sombre-looking. ‘It was scary and no matter what I did to revive you, you wouldn’t wake up. I felt your forehead and realised that your temperature was far too high-’
‘Forty-four degrees isn’t a high temperature, your highness- it’s Hyperpyrexia,’ Dulcie interrupted again, and I gasped.
‘Forty-four? That’s… that’s a fatal temperature for a human, isn’t it?’
‘Usually. So you can imagine my astonishment when it climbed to forty-seven,’ Dulcie said, her bright auburn eyebrows hoisted, and I pressed my hand to my chest.
‘What? What caused that?!’ I pushed at Kohén. ‘Get away from me! If what I have is contagious-’
‘It’s not,’ Kohén said quickly. ‘We don’t know what it is that you had, because someone with a body temperature that high ought to have been vomiting and certainly shouldn’t be up and talking, but it’s not viral or bacterial. How could it be? You’ve been isolated all week!’ He shrugged. ‘We suspect dehydration triggered your first episode, and that gave you a sort-of panic attack that you were too delusional to be talked down from and it all just cumulated-’
‘I haven’t had water in a few days now,’ I admitted, sinking back against the pillows and biting my lip. ‘I realise that now- only wine.’
They both snapped up their heads to gape at me. ‘No water?’ Kohén cocked his head. ‘Do you mean at all?’
I nodded, cringing. ‘I think it occurred to me yesterday that I hadn’t had anything real to eat or drink since Monday night and-’
‘WHAT?’ Kohén lifted off the stool beside my bed and regarded me with horror. ‘How is that even possible?’
I cowered, making myself look as small as I felt. ‘It just… happened that way, okay? I had that dinner with you all on Monday night and then on Tuesday, I was so busy curling my hair that I skipped breakfast. I remember nibbilies being passed around at the parade but I was too excited to be hungry, and then when the feast was almost cooked out on the lawn… I sought you out and…’ I sighed, shaking my head. ‘It just happened, and I haven’t had an appetite since so-’
‘But that was practically five days ago!’ Kohén bellowed, and I really cringed back into the pillows then, for he looked furious. ‘And I’ve brought you meals three times a day- with snacks!’
‘I couldn’t stomach it, so I ended up just pushing the food around,’ I admitted quietly. ‘Sometimes I’d get hungry enough to think that I could eat something, but then we’d fight, or I’d upset myself…’ I thought of the altercations I’d had with Satan and flinched, remembering why I hadn’t had any water- I’d hurtled my crystal jug at that mirror that first morning and hadn’t had it sitting there empty to remind either Kohén or I to fill it since, ‘and I always ended up turning to the wine for comfort after, or falling asleep and…’
‘So yo
u didn’t eat anything?’ Kohén looked dumbfounded. ‘Not even once?’
I shook my head. ‘I realised how long it had been since I’d eaten yesterday afternoon and I vowed to start taking care of myself again. But when I tried to sit down and eat the food you’d brought me for dinner…’ I made a face, ‘the smell almost made me vomit. I was going to ask you to bring me some soup so I could start with something small, but then we started kissing and-’
‘This is unbelievable!’ Dulcie whirled on Kohén. ‘You wonder why the entire kingdom is speculating about your little arrangement here? Why the last healer quit on this girl’s behalf? Well it’s no wonder, is it? Larkin has been almost solely your responsibility since Tuesday and you’ve been completely negligent!’ She threw up her hands. ‘How am I supposed to explain to anyone that Larkin isn’t being mistreated- when passed out mid-coitus because she hadn’t been able to stomach food since she was locked in there with you?’
‘And she’s off again…’ Kohén said, deflating as he indicated to Dulcie. ‘So much for curbing that tongue…’
‘I have the right to say whatever I believe is right!’ she insisted. ‘And I believe that you were negligent!’
I snorted. ‘Well I don’t. He can be accused of being over-attentive, certainly, but not-’
‘Not when it counted!’ Dulcie glowered at Kohén while I bit my lip, reflecting on what Cherry had said about him not realising that I wasn’t talking either. Was it possible that he’d been negligent? Or was my health and well-being my responsibility? ‘If she wasn’t eating, you should have noticed! People can’t survive on affection alone!’
‘If she wasn’t eating, I should have noticed because she should have started dropping weight like crazy, right?’ Kohén demanded, looking offended and guilt-stricken at once, which was a Barachiel trait that he had down to an art.
‘Not straight away, and not if you had a healer seeing her on an almost daily basis, as I’ve heard you had!’ Dulcie pointed out, jabbing a finger my way. ‘Healers soothe every ailment, Kohén, but they heal by touch- it works better on the outside than it does on the inside unless they’re concentrating on something specific. Cherry has kept her hair from turning dull and her skin from looking wan and the blood vessels in her eyes from bursting- but that can’t put food in the belly, or water in the system. And Larkin wouldn’t have known that she was starving or unwell if she was drunk all week long, as she obviously was! Anything she was showing symptoms for could have been written off as stress, inebriation or dare I say: overuse!’
‘She was not overused- Cherry told me to give her a break and I have, okay? Before this incident, all we’d done since Wednesday night is kiss!’ But Kohén looked at me then and lowered his voice when he asked: ‘Is the alcohol thing true, Lark? I knew you were enjoying the wine- but have you truly been heavily under the influence of it this whole time?’
‘Most of it,’ I admitted, and his face collapsed so I sat up. ‘Kohén I’m sorry, okay?’
‘Don’t apologise to him!’ Dulcie spat. ‘He almost fucked you until you died! This is a red flag, Larkin of Eden, and the only case like this that we’ve ever had! There’s besotted- and there’s homicidal!’
‘Dulcie Garvant!’ Kohén thundered.
‘What? You almost got her killed didn’t you? Go on, deny it!’
‘No, I almost got me killed!’ I bit back, growing impatient with her. Right or wrong, didn’t she know that piling guilt and accusations on top of a Barachiel was just asking for more trouble? I knew she had no way of knowing that she was getting the wrong prince into strife with her harsh words, but she was and I had to put an end to it before Kohén decided that I’d faked everything that I’d claimed to feel for him for the sole purpose of saving Kohl’s ass. Yes that had been the case at first, but it wasn’t now… was it? I turned to my grief-stricken lover and reached for his hand. ‘This was a hard week to get through so I turned to the bottle, and doing that led to me sleeping or drinking every time you left- when yes, I probably should have been eating. But Cherry had commanded me to rest and so I figured that that was all I was doing, all right?’
‘Because you were wasted,’ Kohén said, furrowing his brow. ‘Every moment we spent this week… you had to be drunk to get through them, didn’t you?’
I recoiled, hurt. ‘No! Not… not every moment… just some of the earlier ones and…’ I darted a look at Dulcie, hinting that she should leave, but she crossed her arms and stood her ground and I groaned inwardly. It was so hard to communicate what I needed to clarify with Kohén without putting my foot in something else with her or bringing everyone’s attention to the fact that Satan had caused me the most distress that week! ‘I guess it just became a habit, all right? The drink calmed me down and made me feel full.’ I reached for him again, but he pulled back, and I felt wounded. ‘Not every moment, Kohén,’ I repeated softly. ‘Not yesterday morning either, in your room…I was sober then.’
Kohén’s eyelashes fluttered at that. ‘Really?’
I nodded, stretching that little bit further and getting his hand at last, hooking his fingertips with mine. ‘I love you,’ I said, and his eyes immediately brightened. ‘I was drunk when I said it last night, but I mean it now.’ I turned to Dulcie. ‘And if anyone asks you what is going on behind the closed doors of the harem, you can tell them that, all right?’
Dulcie’s mouth was hanging open as she looked from Kohén to me, then back again and I was the sole recipient of her astonished gaze. ‘Did you cheat on your PCE exam? I thought you were a genius- but you’re certainly not acting like one!’
It was like taking a blow to the stomach, but Kohén reacted like he was the one that had been hit, not her. ‘Do not speak to Larkin that way!’
‘Or what, Prince Barachiel?’ Dulcie demanded, curling her lower lip. ‘Will you have me whipped? Brand me as a truth-teller and have me cast over the fence?’ She shook her head. ‘It is not a crime to express one’s opinion, and if we are truly equals as God said we ought to be, I need not fear suffering recriminations for being candid with someone just because they happen to be a monarch, right? And if I do suffer recriminations for it all…’ she took a step towards him, eyes slitting, ‘then you’ll just be proving that everyone screaming for her release is right to scream for it, won’t you? Because you will be a tyrant!’
‘Tyrant?’ Kohén exploded.
‘Screaming for my release?’ I demanded, forcing him to sit down. ‘Who is screaming for my release?’
‘Everybody, Larkin!’ Dulcie cried, and I reeled with shock, turning to Kohén who winced, but nodded miserably. ‘Everybody!’
‘Even people that I thought new me well enough to understand that I could never have done the things I’m being accused of doing…’ Kohén admitted in a choked voice. ‘The girls I released from the harem- the girls Karol released…’ he sighed. ‘Even Ora… that idiot. She’s now leading the movement to get you released from here!’
No, that couldn’t be true! But when I looked at Kohén’s despairing expression I knew that it was.
And I knew why Kohén looked worse than I felt- I’d almost died the night before, but as soon as he left this harem, his father was going to kill him for murdering the family name.
16.
‘What do you mean by saying that people are enraged?’ I stammered, asking Kohén and Dulcie both but staring at Kohén. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Thanks to Karol’s public announcement last week, everybody in Arcadia knows that you were supposed to walk free- and didn’t,’ Kohén said. ‘And I was doing my best to convince them that you’d stayed on willingly. But no one’s buying that now, not since the Banished caught wind of some of the things that have happened here- because they heard Karol’s speech from the fences too, remember?’ He sighed. ‘You were the poster child for all that was good about the third-born cast, but now you’ve become the cautionary tale for it… and I the example of all that’s apparently evil and wrong about the mona
rchy.’
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘It’s not just the people on the other side of that fence or your friends that believe it!’ Dulcie chimed in. ‘I know of about twenty members of the nobility that have grown anxious regarding your well-being, and twice that in the other castes!’
I cupped my mouth with my hands. ‘Why?’
‘Because gossip is contagious!’ Kohén thundered. ‘Because of how Kohl acted that first night, when he ran off and got himself and a horse ripped open in his grief!!’ Kohén’s eyes were black. ‘And because Kelia died! And because you lost your voice! Because I have not allowed you out! Because when you were seen out- you were sporting a black eye thanks to mother!’ Kohén threw out his hands. ‘All of it! You know how all of that came to pass, but you also understand why I can’t supply everyone that wants to know what’s going on here with a detailed explanation for it all, so in the absence of one, people are losing their goddamn minds! And when they discover that you’ve been starved to death under my watch now... Argh!’ Kohén swiped a box of combs off the salon table behind him, and Dulcie and I both flinched when they clattered to the floor. He wheeled on me, pressing his glowing blue hands to his chest. ‘I’m an evil villain now! Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? I didn’t ask for this shit, and you know it! I wanted you to be released, but no one believes it now! I loved you and wanted to make you my wife and they- they’ve ruined everything!’ he pointed towards the door and a burst of blue-hot electricity surged across the room, causing Dulcie to jump and the door to char where he’d hit it.
They: he’d been pointing in Karol and Kohl’s general direction. Tears of fear filled my eyes and I tried to sit up. ‘Kohén-’
‘Are you insisting that there is a reasonable explanation for all of this that would clear your name, Prince Kohén?’ Dulcie demanded, but she looked at me. There wasn’t, not by half, but there were plenty of reasons to explain why he wasn’t exactly a villain either, so I nodded miserably and Dulcie blinked in shock. ‘Well… that’s…’ she scratched her head. ‘Well…’